The Shed Hunting Addiction

Mark Kayser

Some days the prize is nothing more than exercise and the opportunity to spend a day enjoying outdoor splendor. That's fine with me. Other days can bring the treasure of a handful of antlers or, if you're lucky, a pack full of the pointy prizes.

I can't explain it. Most others I know afflicted with the same disorder face similar pains justifying their actions. Why would one spend countless hours hiking woodlands, clamoring up cliff-like precipices, wading through cattail jungles and tackling the worst of spring weather to pick up a cast antler? There isn't even the reward of a meaty venison steak after the laborious task.

I've had those thoughts over and over again when questioned by my loving spouse on the collection of thousands of antlers cluttering my barn amid a hasty departure for yet another trip to look for more. Sure, some do it for the reward of a paycheck mainly from antler artists, but for most it is simply described best as an addiction dating to our caveman ancestors.

Opening day isn't regulated by a game-and-fish commission, aside from a few Western states for the protection of wintering game. Mother Nature rings the opening bell, usually in March. And the "season" continues until the green grass hides sheds or mineral-hungry rodents gnaw antlers to barely recognizable nubs.

Anticipation escalates by weekend scoping of local bucks and bulls from afar to measure when the bulk of them have jettisoned their headgear. My local community has a penned herd of elk, and come spring I check the daily status of the herd bull's antlers to measure when free-ranging cousins may finish shedding. If the winter has been particularly unforgiving animals may shed earlier, but most years antlers fall off in a timely matter comparable to the rising and setting of the sun. From that point on your take depends primarily on your available free time and your physical endurance.

Locating an antler brings instant satisfaction, but once the warm feeling subsides it can also shed a wealth of information for those willing to look beyond the initial fortune. My best scouting for the coming season is from spring shed hunting. Why? I'm not afraid to venture into bedrooms, sanctuaries and other hideouts I deem off-limits most other times of the year in fear of spooking game into pattern-changing moves.

Rubs, scrapes, wallows and heavily used trails all stand out in the bareness before spring showers vegetate the landscape. Of course the antler itself reveals whether a particular animal survived hunting season and winter's brutality. But you may also stumble across the carcasses of other big game less fortunate, giving you solid information on what animal densities to expect in the fall. If you hunt migrating game, use the location of shed antlers to backtrack and locate prime habitat to target in hunting season. Put it all together and you have a solid plan in place on where to begin next season's hunt. That's a goal equally as valuable as the shed antler in hand.

Tips to Lay Out Ol' Tom

Fly-down time at dawn

is, quite naturally, assumed by many hunters to be the best time all day to bag a tom. Trouble is, the hen or hens that old fella is visiting at that time of day may not let him off the hook long enough to pay attention to your calls and come anywhere near your setup. But during the peak of the breeding season, those hens are apt to visit their nests by noon. Your best shot at calling him close may come then, when old tom is lonely for attention.

Many times a tom hangs up

not because of an obstacle, but because he's walked far enough toward your call and, having not seen a hen, walks away. Your mistake: setting up too far outside that all-important range and never seeing him. When you call, be sure of a good line of sight through terrain and vegetation, and depending on cover, try to get within 100 yards of him before plopping down.

If you hear a gobbler moving away from you,

don't waste more time and breath trying to call him back. Instead, get up and hustle in a wide circle around him. If you need to hear him for reference, use a locator call. When you feel you are ahead of him, quickly set up and give a series of aggressive yelps with a call you haven't used yet. Many times this "fresh hen" tactic will prove successful.

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Like the fossilized skeletons of its ancestors displayed in the Smithsonian, a 12-foot alligator can be scary even when it's dead—something that Shooting Illustrated's Adam Heggenstaller learned in person during a gator hunt in Florida. Read More »

Could 2011 be the year of the work truck? If so, the Ram Tradesman is ready to clock in. Equipped with a juiced-up HEMI® engine.... Read More »

307 5/8 inches

Boone and Crockett Club official measurement of the largest fair-chase buck ever killed—taken by Tony Luvstuen on Sept. 29, 2003, with a muzzleloader during Iowa's early youth muzzleloader season.

400 pounds

Field-dressed weight of a whitetail buck taken by Carl J. Lenander Jr. in 1926 near Tofte, Minn.

1,441

Most record-book entries in Wis., all-time.

1,277

Most record-book entries in Ill., all-time.

fast fact

The cackling goose, a smaller-bodied goose prominent in Canada and Alaska, is a tundra-breeder with considerably more black plumage than the Canada. At one time, the cackling goose was considered the smallest subspecies of the Canada, but is now recognized as a separate species.